A NIGHT OF HIGHS AND LOWS

The family clique, with the exception of Charlotte and Gary, our usual crowd, planned to meet at Carrabba’s Italian Grill at 5 PM tonight. Gary had a root canal done this week, so he was not up to all our frivolity and cackling! Can’t blam’em, you do have to be in tip-top shape and in the best of moods to keep up!

Anyway, Judy and I left home around 3 so we could stop by Best Buy and H. H. Gregg’s. We have decided to buy a mid-range laptop for travel, and to replace Judy’s aging Freecell and Jewel Quest machine. We began by looking at small 15” models, but have since graduated up to 17”!

We have the best luck! We were looking at a Toshiba at Gregg’s Friday but decided we should do some online research first, and then come back Saturday. We discussed stopping by Best Buy on the way out of Turkey Creek, but decided we could do that on Saturday too!

Turns out, we both fell for an HP – Pavilion at Best Buy tonight, and it was $150 off! However, with our luck they had sold all but a demo model Friday! If we had stopped, I might be sitting here configuring it right now – darn it! I asked the guy to sell me the demo, but he said they would not let him do that, since they had a thousand dollar model that looks just like it externally.

I have searched hi and low tonight and it seems this model was made specifically for Best Buy by HP. The sale is off, there are no rain checks, and it isn’t available anywhere online! So, the only thing I could do was to put the item on my “wish list!”

I’m hoping Black Friday will bring out other deals on AMD 64-bit processor and Vista 64-bit software packages!

Meanwhile, back a Carrabba’s, everyone arrived and the Knights begin ordering Yuenglings, and letting our cute little waitress pour them for us. Dang…can’t remember her name…wonder way! Anyway, I gave her one of my “blogness cards”, so maybe she’ll leave a comment!

The fellowship, as usual, was soul filling, and we all needed a fill-up…it had been a while!

The food was the only thing more filling and, as usual, perfecto! I don’t remember ever having had a bad dish at Carrabba’s.

Our only complaint, and it was because of the size of our group (6), was that we were seated near where the waiters pick up their orders. However, it too had some rewards, at least for us Knights. It was mostly the Dragons with their backs to the action that had less of a reward! I kept waiting for Chef Ramsey to come out of the back and scream some obscenity at some cook! (Just a little inside joke…Judy has gotten me into watching his shows.)

There are so many delicious sounding entrées on the menu that it’s hard to make a decision. Ron, of course, had the Grilled Salmon, fresh from some river in Italy, Judy and Terri had tilapia (Which is the common name for nearly a hundred species of cichlid fishes, so there’s no telling what they really ate!) from the Pacific covered in “wulfe” sauce, and Neena had something involving chicken I’m sure, but Steve and I had the only real Italian dishes.

Steve had the Linguine Pescatore, which is shrimp, scallops and mussels tossed with linguine in a spicy marinara sauce, mmmmm…Mamma Mia! I choose the Chicken & Spinach Cannelloni, which is stuffed with chicken, spinach, garlic, fresh herbs, fontina and romano cheese, topped with pomodoro and cream sauce! All were great choices!

As we left the restaurant, a dark cloud of stench wafted over us, and everyone looked to their right and left. Everyone was blaming the other, so we hugged quickly and left the area!

After we got home, “someone” called and confessed…Gawd; you can’t take a Dragon anywhere!